Heat condensers are commonly known for use in vehicles for cooling high pressure refrigerant vapor. Such heat exchangers include parallel tanks with a plurality of tube passes extending between each tank for communicating the refrigerant flow therebetween. Air centers are connected to and between each tube pass for conductively transferring heat from the refrigerant to the air flow therethrough.
The common practice for plumbing refrigerant into and out of condensers is with tubing, typically 0.5 inches and 0.375 inches. Some packaging of the vehicle requires severe and complicated bends in the pipes to and from the condensers. In the case of three-pass and five-pass heat exchangers, the inlet and outlet are at opposite sides or tanks of the condenser. Pipes with costly brackets and complicated bends have been the traditional method to arrange both fittings on the same side of the condenser for connection to the refrigerant lines of the refrigerant system of an automotive air conditioning system.
Prior art four-pass or two-pass parallel flow condensers are also known. FIG. 1A shows a four-pass condenser having an inlet pipe 1 that receives refrigerant and circulates it through brazed tube and air center core 8. In such condensers, internal separators or blockage plates 9 channel the flow through the return tank 4 and out of the inlet/outlet tank 3 and outlet pipe 2. Refrigerant flows through the tube passes and air centers brazed to the tubes conduct heat into the air stream passing through the core. Side plates 5 are brazed to the outside air centers to provide strength and to protect the outside air centers. In this configuration, an aperture is provided on the tank 3 to receive the inlet of refrigerant, and an outlet is provided on the opposite end of the tank 3. Tubing 2 is used to provide an outlet connection near the inlet.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,960,169, issued Oct. 2, 1990 in the name of Granetzke discloses a heat exchanger having partitions therein and the general structure of tank and header system. Japanese Patent Number 63-3192 discloses a heat exchanger utilizing a pair of headers and tubes providing passage shielding plates within the headers and gradually circulating a coolant through the front passage and rear side passage. The inlet side of the heat exchanger is in the opposite tank to the outlet and does not solve the problem of connecting the fittings on the same side of the heat exchanger without use of a tube extension part.